Chasing Justice: A Matt Royal Mystery

by H. Terrell Griffin

  She frowned. “I’m afraid you’re right. I’ll just have to keep digging. Where are you going with Abby’s case?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I don’t think she killed Bannister, and I don’t think the state can prove she did. At least not with the evidence they have so far.”

  “What about the DNA on the sheets?”

  “If it’s hers, that would be a big hurdle to get over. I guess we’ll know in a few days. I need to find somebody who can tell me about those emails. I’d like to know where they came from since they weren’t sent from Abby’s computer.”

  “Our department geek could probably explain that to you.”

  “I don’t want to have any appearance of help from your people. That could end up biting me in the butt at trial.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I’ll have to hire an expert who can testify, if need be.”

  “Who do you think did kill Bannister?”

  “I don’t have any idea, but I need to come up with some suspects to give the jury a plausible alternative to Abby as the murderer. That produces reasonable doubt, which means acquittal.”

  “I thought you were pretty sure the state didn’t have enough evidence to convict.”

  “I don’t think they do, now, but we’ve got several months to go before trial. And there’s the DNA question hanging out there.”

  “Did Abby have an affair with Bannister?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t asked her.”

  “Isn’t that important?”

  “It may be, but not right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Abby’s fingerprints in Bannister’s condo mean nothing in and of themselves. Except that she’s been in the house. But so have a lot of other people. If the DNA isn’t Abby’s, that shoots a hole in the prosecution’s theory that it was an affair gone bad. The emails certainly made it look like there had been an affair, but they didn’t come from Abby’s computer. So unless Swann and Lucas can tie the emails to Abby in some way, or find a witness who will testify that he or she has some knowledge of an affair, I think we’ll be in the clear. If that theory is dead, I don’t need to know about an affair. And frankly, I just don’t want to think that Abby would do something like that.”

  “You need to be very careful of your objectivity, Counselor.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m counting on you to help me with that.”

  “Even if someone wanted to kill Bannister, and from what I hear, there may have been a lot of them, why would they pick Abby to pin it on?”

  “If I can find the answer to that, I’ll know who the killer is.” “Are you going to stay here tonight?” J.D. asked.

  “No, I want to get on the computer and do a little research. I wouldn’t be good company.”

  “You’re always good company.”

  “Well, your expectations are minimal.”

  “Hmm. You’re probably right. I do the best I can with what little I’ve got to work with.”

  “Are you saying that what you have to work with isn’t a lot?”

  “No, sweetie,” she said, “it’s not. But we women put up with a lot, or a little, in the name of love.”

  “Wasn’t that a song?”

  “Roberta Flack. ‘When you feel it, you can’t let go.’”

  “Geez,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was nearing ten in the evening when I walked into my cottage. It had been a long day and I was tired. I felt my bed calling me, but I had a few things to do if I didn’t want to lie awake all night worrying about them.

  I rummaged around in my desk drawer and found the external hard drive on which I kept all kinds of legal things left over from my years of law practice. I had forms for most of the pleadings I would be filing during the course of State of Florida vs. Abigail Lester, lots of statutes and case law, which I needed to update, and other miscellany. I might be able to muddle through without hiring a law clerk.

  I would need an investigator. There were too many questions that needed to be answered, and although the state attorney was supposed to provide me with much of the information I’d need, I was afraid that George Swann would be a master at the game of hide the ball. It was unethical, of course, but, too often prosecutors forgot their charge to see that justice was done rather than the need to win at all costs.

  J.D. had introduced me to a Sarasota police detective named Gus Grantham, with whom she’d worked in Miami before he moved to Sarasota PD a few years before. J.D. and I had gone to dinner with him on several occasions. He had recently retired, gotten his private investigator’s license, and opened an office in a building across from the Ringling School of Art and Design on North Tamiami Trail. I decided to give him a call the next morning.

  I needed to find out more about my opponent. I Googled Swann and found several articles about him and his trials that had run over the years in the Florida Times-Union, the Jacksonville newspaper. He’d been a climber, starting out in the misdemeanor division when he graduated from law school at Florida State University. He’d moved up quickly to the felony division and within a few years was trying murder cases. He’d been with the state attorney’s office for thirteen years, was thirty-nine years old, and a native of Orange Park, a suburb of Jacksonville. A few of the articles about his murder cases mentioned the names of his opposing counsel, usually a member of the public defender’s staff. I made a mental note to call a couple of them.

  I did a quick survey of the case law, updating my digital library, downloading a few recent cases, and cataloging them by subject matter. They’d be close at hand if and when I needed them.

  I was restless, my mind churning, gnawing at the case I’d taken on. There was so much to learn, so much to do, so much riding on the decisions I made, the strategies I relied on. I was probably closer to Abby than a lawyer should be to his client. There were so many reasons I should not handle this case, but while our system of justice was the best in the world, it wasn’t foolproof, and I had come to the conclusion, perhaps unsupported by facts, that Swann and Lucas were glory hounds who would not be above manipulating the process to score a win, no matter the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

  My problem with the practice of law was that I was an idealist. I thought the law should be somehow immaculate, above the machinations of mere mortals. Yeah, I know, that’s kind of stupid, and I had not been a lawyer very long before I began to see how outrageous my expectations had been. It was a rat race and the rats were the lawyers who plied their trade in the courtrooms all over the country. Winning, not justice, was the name of the game, and I became one of the rats. Alcohol consumption made it easier to go to work every day, and I began to exist in a haze of good bourbon. I had once been a proud soldier, an officer leading a group of men who were the best fighters in the world and the most honorable people I’d ever known. Honorable men in the honorable profession of soldiering. Then I went to law school.

  The terrible contradiction of the law was that it was peopled for the most part with idealists who had to lower their sights to survive in the real world of daily practice. Most of the lawyers I knew were honest, forthright, and hard working. But there were enough of the other kind that the practice lost its allure for me.

  My wife Laura, the only woman I’d loved before I met J.D., worked hard at our marriage, but finally gave up in the face of my intransigence. She left me, got a divorce, and remarried. I woke up one morning a couple of years later, looked around my empty house, said the hell with it, sold everything I had, and moved to Longboat Key to start over. It was the best decision I’d made in a long time.

  Maybe it was that innate idealism, the little flicker of what was left of it that still endured deep in my soul that was dragging me back into the courtroom. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. But was I doing this for Abby Lester, or myself? I’d have to chew on that some. And my house, on this night, was very empty. I picked up m
y phone and called J.D.

  “I need a place to sleep,” I said. “I’m not real choosy about where or with whom.”

  “You did say sleep.”

  “Yes.”

  “Just sleep?”

  “I think so. I’m tired.”

  “Then come on over. I’ll make room for you.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I slept in on Wednesday morning. At some point I heard the shower running and a bit later, I felt J.D. kiss me on the forehead as she was leaving for work. I went back to sleep until a little after nine and woke up feeling like I could take on the world.

  I showered in J.D.’s oversized shower, dressed, and drove the mile and a half to the Blue Dolphin Café for breakfast. Most of the locals had already left and the place was full of tourists. I sat at the counter and read the Tampa Bay Times while I ate. I was aware that someone had taken the stool next to me, but I was engrossed in the latest news out of Washington, which really wasn’t news, just a rehash of the same old political battles that were so meaningless to most people.

  “Back to the courtroom, huh, buddy? You must be bored.”

  I looked up to find my friend Logan Hamilton sitting next to me. I laughed. “Hey, Logan. You look a little peaked. Long night?”

  “Tiny’s was jumping. I thought you and J.D. might stop in.”

  “We had a quiet night. I got a pizza and salad from Ciao’s and we ate at her place. Anything special going on at Tiny’s?”

  “Nah. A lot of snowbirds winding up their stays on the key. Most of them are headed north. I guess they wanted to make sure there wasn’t any liquor left on the island. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing by taking on Abby’s case?”

  “I think so. What do you think?

  “Matt, there’s no better lawyer in the state than you are. If anybody can get her off, it’s you.” He sat quietly.

  “I appreciate the compliment, but you still haven’t said whether you think I ought to be on this case.”

  “You think she’s being railroaded, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know why.”

  “You want to get up on that white charger of yours and go do justice, don’t you?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “Then go do it. If somebody else takes this case, and she’s found guilty, you’ll never get over it.”

  “Suppose I take the case and she’s still found guilty?”

  “You’ll do everything you can to see that doesn’t happen, won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you won’t have any regrets.”

  “If I lose, I will. I remember every case I ever lost. I regret them all.”

  “In the cases you lost, were any of the clients innocent?”

  “Probably not. But I still lost.”

  “You were supposed to lose, buddy. Can’t have those guilty bastards on the streets.”

  As usual, Logan had a point. “Well, I’m in it now.” I said. “For good or bad.”

  “You’ll do fine. When are we going fishing?”

  “October, probably.”

  “October? Are you crazy?”

  “Trial will be over by then.”

  “You’re full of crap, Royal. You won’t be able to wait that long.”

  “You’re probably right. How about Saturday?”

  * * *

  I went back to my cottage and called Gus Grantham. “I might have some work for you, Gus. Can you have lunch today?”

  “Abby Lester?”

  I was surprised. “How did you know about that?”

  “You were on the front page of the Herald-Tribune this morning. Big piece about a beach-bum lawyer coming out of retirement to take the case. Don’t you read the paper?”

  “I haven’t seen today’s Sarasota paper. I’ll pick up a copy. But, yes, this is about Abby’s case. Is that a problem?”

  “Not at all. Where do you want to have lunch?”

  “How about Cha Cha Coconut’s on the Circle. At noon.”

  “See you then.”

  I cranked up my computer and called a lawyer I knew in Jacksonville who had tried a case against George Swann. I identified myself and told him about my upcoming trial.

  “I heard you had retired and were living the good life down in the keys.”

  “You heard right, except that I’m on Longboat Key, near Sarasota. What can you tell me about Swann?”

  “He’s a snake,” the lawyer said.

  “Don’t mince words,” I said. “Tell me straight up.”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t usually talk about a lawyer like that, but Swann is just a bad guy.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “First of all, he’s very particular about the cases he tries.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If there’s a solid defense, or even a chance of a defense, he’ll either plead it out or dismiss the case. He only goes to trial on slam dunks.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “One of his wins had to do with a murder where a man with a record as long as my arm killed a cop. Three other cops witnessed the shoot-out. Swann opted to go for the death penalty and wouldn’t agree to anything less. The public defender put up as good a defense as he could, but the trial took one day. Swann put the three cops on the stand, the defense put on no case, and the jury was out for twenty minutes.”

  “Are there others like that?”

  “You mean big wins?” he said, sarcastically. “Yes.”

  “Most of them.”

  “What about the case you tried against him?”

  “Pretty much the same kind of case. I was appointed because the public defender had a conflict. My guy was guilty and the evidence was pretty much stacked against me. I tried for an insanity defense because there was no other chance. I think Swann was afraid his precious win record might be compromised, so he did everything he could to screw with me. I had a hell of a time getting the discovery done. Everything I filed was contested, put off with motions, anything he could do to keep me from getting the stuff I was entitled to.”

  “Your judge didn’t do anything about it?”

  “He ruled with me every time, but refused to order sanctions.”

  “Why?”

  “The state attorney is a big political power up here, and the judge has to run for reelection. He wasn’t about to piss off the man.”

  “How did your case come out?”

  “The judge ruled against us on the insanity plea and we lost. I won in the penalty phase, though. No death penalty. But Swann still puts that one in his win column. In fact, a lot of those wins are where he had slam dunks, and he got the conviction, but lost the death penalty. The defendants still went away for life without parole.”

  A little small talk and I thanked him and hung up. I made two more calls to lawyers in Jacksonville, and got pretty much the same opinions. Swann was not an ethical man, and it didn’t sound like his boss was either. My suspicions were confirmed. I’d have to keep my eyes open and expect the worst kind of lawyering. But then, two could play that game.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The department geek had left a report on J.D.’s desk concerning the tattoo on Linda Favereaux’s arm. He had found its twin in a database that was restricted to law enforcement agencies. Over the years, the federal agencies had collected thousands of pictures of tattoos found on drug dealers, terrorists, white supremacy groups, criminal gangs, and others who would do harm to the rest of us. Curiously, Linda’s tattoo matched the secret logo of a neo-Nazi group that, according to the geek’s report, was still marginally active in Louisiana. A web address was included.

  J.D. typed it into her computer and up popped a picture of a man in a brown shirt wearing a red armband bearing the swastika of the Nazi party. His right arm was straight out in the Nazi salute. A banner above him screamed, “TAKE AMERICA BACK FROM THE MONGRELS.” The group’s name was emblazoned across the bottom: “THE WHITE AMERICA PART
Y.”

  The text made J.D. wince. It was an exhortation to kill black people, brown people, Jews, and Muslims; anybody who wasn’t of the Aryan race, whatever that was. The party seemed to be small, but was proud that it had existed for more than forty years, doing its best to transform America into what the Founders had envisioned, a democratic utopia where the white race could achieve its God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, without the nettlesome problems presented by the inferior races.

  J.D. clicked off the site and sat for a few minutes, wondering at the insanity of these people. What could have happened to them to cause such hatred, such paranoia? She shook herself out of her reverie and called Lyn Haycock to ask her if either of the Favereauxes had ever said anything racist in their meetings.

  “No,” Lyn said. “To the contrary, I know they had some black friends. I’ve seen them on the island at least twice with a black couple who live on the mainland. They introduced them to Mike and me as old friends.”

  “Do you remember their names?”

  “I can’t come up with a last name, but their first names were Mark and Julie. They’re both professors at the Sarasota campus of the University of South Florida.”

  “Thanks, Lyn. That’ll narrow the search substantially.”

  The USF branch at Sarasota only enrolled a couple thousand students, so the faculty would be fairly small. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the professors. She called the Human Resources Department and asked to speak to the director.

  “This is Detective J.D. Duncan, Longboat Key police. I’m trying to identify a couple of your professors who might have some information about a case I’m working on.”

  “I don’t know what I can tell you, Detective,” the woman on the other end of the line said. “We have a lot of privacy concerns here.”

  “Actually, I just need a last name. The professors are married, they’re black and their first names are Mark and Julie.”

  “Oh, I know just who you’re talking about, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving out any information on them. Suppose I take your number and ask one of them to call you?”